In order to produce various types of electronic equipment using carbon nanotubes, the technology has been proposed in which a substrate is placed in a carbon-source gas atmosphere and heated to make carbon nanotubes grow. A catalyst to make carbon nanotubes grow has been also researched. Such technologies are disclosed in non-patent literatures 1 to 3 below.
Non-patent literature 1 discloses the technology to form a Cr and Co layer on the entire surface of a substrate and expose the substrate to microwaves to make carbon nanotubes grow.
Non-patent literature 2 discloses the technology to make single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) grow within a short time, using a Fe/Al2O3 catalyst.
Non-patent literature 3 discloses the technology to perform heating at 400° C. for 30 minutes in a carbon-source gas atmosphere in order to form carbon nanotubes on a substrate.
Non-patent literature 1: Beom-Jin Yoon et al, Fabrication of Flexible Carbon Nanotube Field Emitter Arrays by Direct Microwave Irradiation on Organic Polymer Substrate, JACS communications, vol. 127, pp. 8234-8235, Journal of American Chemical Society, May 20, 2005, web publication    Non-patent literature 2: Suguru NODA, Kei HASEGAWA, Hisashi SUGIME, Kazunori KAKEHI, Zhengyi ZHANG, Shigeo MARUYAMA and Yukio YAMAGUCHI, Millimeter-Thick Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Forests: Hidden Role of Catalyst Support, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 46, No. 17, pp. L399-L401, Apr. 20, 2007, online publication    Non-patent literature 3: Y. Shiratori, H. Hiraoka and Y. Takeuchi, One-step formation of aligned carbon nanotube field emitters at 400° C., Applied Physics Letters, vol. 82, No. 15, Apr. 14, 2003